Thirteen Nights
by Aeditimi Scriba
Summary: Post OOTP, Remus and Tonks find what comfort they can. R/T, implied R/S. "She couldn’t know, couldn’t understand the hollow constriction in his chest, where the memory of Sirius quivered, a raw, bleeding thing..."


When first he saw her, coming through the door into Molly's kitchen, he had to remind himself that she too had been injured that night at the Ministry. Her normally vivid hair was dull and mousy, her face, usually as brilliant as her cousin's, was drawn and pinched. It's the shock of the injury, he told himself, she's sick, in pain. It doesn't mean anything. She couldn't know, couldn't understand the hollow constriction in his chest, where the memory of Sirius quivered, a raw, bleeding thing.

But all through the quiet meal, he felt her eyes upon him, never questioning, just watching as she pushed her food around her plate. And while the members of the Order talked about headquarters and strategy and what to do next, he felt the room shrinking around him, the air becoming stale with the concerns of practicality. Finally he excused himself from the table, and let himself out into the yard, hoping the cooler air would clear the ringing in his ears.

He walked along the edge of the garden, pausing to watch a pair of beetles spiral one another in an odd, clumsy mating dance, but even that was too close to the place he couldn't go, the recognition of something gone. Instead, he walked to the edge of the fence and gazed out over the field where the kids liked to play Quidditch and counted again the days in his head. Thirteen. Not yet a fortnight.

And suddenly she was there, coming up behind him with uncharacteristic silence, or perhaps he'd been more absorbed in the mating patterns of beetles than he realized.

"Hey."

"Hello, Tonks."

"How are you holding up?" It was not an empty courtesy, but a real question, begging an honest answer.

He let his breath out through his teeth. "I'm not sure that I am."

There was a moment of stillness—not an awkward pause, but a shared truth, almost like companionship, or prayer.

"I miss him too," she said softly.

He swallowed whatever emotion it was that had lumped up in his throat, and made himself look at her. "I keep forgetting he was your cousin, too. My condolences…"

"No, I didn't mean—I didn't come out here so you could comfort me! I just, I mean, I loved him, he was my family, but not like you…"

"He was my family, too." It was impossible to keep the edge from his voice.

"I know." It was almost a whisper this time.

He stared out at the dark smudge where the trees bordered the field, wondering when she would leave, but after a moment she spoke again. "When we were kids, we didn't see each other very often, because—of my dad. But the few times we got together I really liked him. He always made me laugh. He was the only one who treated us... anyway. This past year, it was like having a part of that again, and then—it just happened all at once, and I… "

Her voice hitched, making him look at her, and he was surprised to see the tears already dripping from her chin. Then he was moving, catching her as her legs buckled, pulling her to his chest while her small frame shook. He had a moment to wonder at her sobs, how throaty and masculine they were, before he realized they were his own. And suddenly, like the rib-splintering wrench of becoming the Wolf, his chest was heaving with the wracking sobs, and it was impossible to tell who was rocking who, who was comforting who, and all he knew was that when the sobs eased, his mouth was on hers, tasting her salty tears.

And then they had Apparated into the main room of his cottage, and his hands were in her hair and she was clinging to him as he backed up the stairs and into his room. He had never been like this, this desperate and reckless—even with Sirius he was deliberate, calculated. But this was different; this was a new hunger, a deeper need that had opened inside him. She clawed at his chest, wrestling with his robes, and he tore hers pulling them over her head. The footboard caught him behind the knees and he fell backward onto the bed, pulling her down on top of him, their breath still coming in mingled gasps and sobs. Her milky skin was smooth and unfamiliar against his, and his hands savored her flesh, the curve at her lower back, the nipple hardening in his palm as he cupped a breast. She was covering him in softness, all hip and hair and lips at the base of his throat and O God it had been a long time since he'd been with a woman, and she was arching over him, drawing him, pulling him, and he was thrusting into her so that if he closed his eyes he could shut it all out and pretend—not that she was Sirius, never that—but that nothing existed but them, but this.

Remus woke feeling uneasy, the breath on his skin prickling his senses. She was curled against his side, her soft, feminine scent twisting itself into his sheets, his room. The slight weight of her head on his chest seemed to restrict his breathing, and he felt a panic rising, a need to move. He disentangled himself from the bed as quickly as he could without waking her and gathered his clothes in the light of the early-slanted sun. Food would help. Food, and more fresh air.

He was halfway through his cup of tea by the time he felt her watching him from inside the kitchen. She stood for a moment, dimly framed in the doorway, and then she pushed open the screen and joined him in the garden. She came up beside him and slipped her hand into his, an easy, familiar gesture that made his stomach clench. He jerked his fingers from hers.

"Don't."

"Don't what?" Her voice trembled slightly, asking a thousand questions he couldn't—didn't want to—answer. He studied his teacup so that he would not have to look at her looking at him. There was a chip in the rim where Sirius had nicked it putting away dishes one morning almost a year ago, now.

"We shouldn't have." Steady, level. "It was a mistake."

"Mistake?" she echoed, and he turned enough to see her face, wide and honest. "But I—it was…"

"We can't. _I_ can't." He waited a while to let the words sink in, watched the pain register in her eyes, her jaw.

"You can't possibly understand, Nymphadora. I'm a _werewolf._"

The use of her given name rallied her, and she drew back a little, squaring her shoulders. "What can't I understand? What it is to change shape, what it means to have a part of you that stays the same while everything else is different? I know that, Remus, I get it, and I get that you're a werewolf and I don't care."

"You _don't_ understand if you think it's anything like what you can do." He kept his voice flat, academic. "You can't know the danger of it, the pain of the transformation, how easily I could hurt you, kill you."

She shook her head. "You won't hurt me. I trust you, Remus, and I can learn—how to help you, how to be with you. Let me be with you."

He clenched his teeth against the anger rising in his throat. "You can't, Nymphadora—"

"Stop calling me that—"

"You don't know what you're asking. I've already given up the love of my life. That isn't something you just… I'm too old to try it again, to start back at the beginning. Especially with someone so young…"

"I'm not that much younger than you—"

"I'm an old man, and you're just a child!"

Her hand stung his cheek as she slapped him, hard. "Don't call me a child. I battled beside you, all of you; I fought our little family feud; I was there when he—I know how he fell. You can wallow in your misery for as long as you need to, claiming it's age or sickness or noble concern for others. You can shut me out, close yourself off from me, from everyone, make all the excuses you want, but don't you dare stand there and call me a child."

And with a crack she Disapparated.

Remus stood for several moments in silence, staring down at the dregs in his teacup as he ran a finger along the chip in the rim. Then he smashed the cup on the walk and crunched over the pieces on his way back into his empty kitchen.


End file.
